Climate policy futility

Graphics

Global warming – now “climate change,” given the weakness of the evidence in support of the conventional view – is back in the news, with calls for policies ostensibly aimed at mitigating it. Increased regulatory obstruction of fossil fuel production. Stricter regulation of land use, aimed at reducing urban “sprawl." Subsidies for expensive wind and solar power, despite the reality that the need for backup generation to prevent blackouts yields an increase in conventional pollution and carbon dioxide emissions.

And most prominently: “carbon” taxes, a massive transfer of wealth from the private sector to the government. “Carbon pollution” in the Orwellian language of the environmental left is carbon dioxide, a natural substance that is not toxic to humans at many times current ambient concentrations, that protects plants from various environmental stresses and that is unlike any other effluent regulated by the EPA. Water vapor is a far more important greenhouse gas (GHG) than carbon dioxide; is it too a “pollutant”? Are the oceans the biggest “polluters” in history?

If we apply the widely-accepted MAGICC climate model developed at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and assume the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change midrange emissions path, an immediate cut in U.S. emissions by half would yield a reduction in global temperatures of 0.1 degrees Celsius 100 years from now. Because annual temperature variability is greater than that figure, the predicted effect could not be measured reliably. Note that a 50 percent reduction in U.S. emissions could be achieved only in the face of massive economic dislocation.

More crudely: The IPCC “best estimate” is about 3 degrees Celsius for the temperature effect by the year 2100 of a doubling of carbon dioxide concentrations. (A growing body of peer-reviewed literature suggests that estimate to be too high.) U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases are about 17 percent of global GHG emissions – a proportion that is declining steadily – suggesting that the U.S. would contribute about 0.5 degrees. Suppose that U.S. policies were to reduce our contribution by half. The reduction in the U.S. contribution would be about 0.2-0.3 degrees, any effects of which would not be measurable.

If there are no measurable benefits, then there is no justification for the tax.

Since future temperatures and any resulting effects are unknown, proposals for a carbon tax must be based upon predictions made by various climate models. The models, however, are far less useful than commonly assumed. None can predict, for example: the warming around a millennium ago, the Little Ice Age, the warming around the middle of the 19th century, the cooling (following the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa) through about 1910, the warming from about 1910-1940, the cooling from about 1940-1980, the subsequent warming through about 1998 (a strong El Niño year) and then the absence of a trend over the last 15 or so years.

All climate models predict that anthropogenic warming would create an enhanced heating effect in the tropical mid-troposphere; but neither the satellites nor the weather balloons can find it. In short: The climate models can predict neither the past nor the present.

The past 12 months have set a record for the fewest tornadoes ever in a similar period. The number of wildfires is in a long-term decline. As of June 1 (the outset of the Atlantic hurricane season), it will have been over seven and a half years since a Category 3 or higher hurricane landed on the U.S. coast; that long a period devoid of an intense hurricane landfall has not been observed since 1900. An increase in such hurricane activity in coming decades is far more likely to reflect a reversion toward the mean rather than the effects of GHG concentrations. There is no long-term trend in sea-level increases despite rising atmospheric concentrations of GHG. The Palmer Drought Severity Index shows no trend over the record period beginning in 1895 in terms of drought; more areas in the U.S. have experienced an increase in soil moisture than a decline.

The peer-reviewed literature suggests that adaptation (or resilience) to changing climate conditions would be far less costly than commonly assumed. Such adaptation is a virtue of market processes driven by price signals. We should end the government subsidies for construction in storm, flood and fire zones, thus allowing market forces to adapt to any changing conditions. Privatization of infrastructure investment would do the same. Such market adaptation is distinct from the politicized allocation of resources that is the central feature of the “carbon pollution” framework. It is no accident that “carbon” policies would have the net effect of transferring wealth from red states to blue.

User Agreement

Keep it civil and stay on topic. No profanity, vulgarity, racial
slurs or personal attacks. People who harass others or joke about
tragedies will be blocked. By posting your comment, you agree to
allow Orange County Register Communications, Inc. the right to
republish your name and comment in additional Register publications
without any notification or payment.